Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia: Post-Imperial Vacuity and Quest for Identity

Immigrants in alien countries are supposed to be the wretched of the earth. In the host countries they feel a sense of dislocation, disintegration, disorientation, unbelongingness and dispossession. A sense of alienation comes to prevail over their life. They are rendered psychologically, politically, existentially and metaphysically unstable in the newly adopted country. They, being uprooted from their native culture try to be accepted by the natives of the host country, but they are utterly shocked by the incompatible culture, way of life and ill treatment and racial slurs at the hands of the inhabitants of the host country. They become the victims of racial discrimination and gender issues. They belong to minority community which is culturally and ethnically marginalized. Culturally they are nowhere men and yearn for their self-identity. Many writers, especially diasporic and expatriate writers, deal in their writings with the sad plight of the immigrants in the host country.

Over the last two decades Kureishi has established himself as a cultural spokesman of the immigrants in England, especially Asian community there. As a novelist, playwright and author of screenplays he has recurrently tackled the problems of racial prejudice and ethno-English identity. His vivid portrayals of contemporary Britain explore the irresolvable tensions between the non-white, middle class immigrants who are socially and culturally fragmented and the British natives who see their socio-economic status, cultural prestige and national identity challenged by immigrant populations from the British ex-colonies, who gradually ascend the social ladder to further equality and sameness. However, Kureishi differs from the postcolonial writers in certain r...

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...t they themselves are responsible for their inability to separate from their past legacy.

Primary Source:
Kureishi, Hanif. The Buddha of Suburbia . London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1990. Print.

Secondary Source:
Gilbert, Bart Moore. Hanif Kureishi: Contemporary World Writers. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001. Print.
Kaleta, Kenneth C: Hanif Kureishi: Postcolonial Story Teller. University of Texas Press, 1998. Print.
Larsson, Don,Kureishi in Dialogue, www.cinescene.com/Don/Kureishi.html. Web. 3 March 2012.
Lesher, Linda Parent: The Best Novels of the Nineties: A Reader’s Guide. McFarland and Company, 2000. Print.
Pearl, Nancy: Now Read This: A Guide to Main Stream Fiction, 1978-1998, Libraries Unlimited. 1999. Print.
Smith, Rowland. Post-colonizing the Commonwealth: Studies in Literature and Culture, Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2000. Print.